general update

Yesterday was quite eventfull.
In short: I got the job I wanted, we had a strange evening and I have a sty. (Which, by the way, is the new word for today. Had to look it up in the dictionary.)

I called the army lady again - or rather, tried to call her every ten minutes between 9:30 and 1 o'clock. Then I finally reached somebody, but not the person I talked to the other times. Turns out she's in the hospital because she had an accident. Pretty good excuse for not calling me. I think I'll forgive her.
Anyway, the lady filling in for her wasn't sure whether or not I had gotten accepted, so she called the lady in the hospital and some other people, then called me back, and told me that I should come down to Munich beginning of November to sign the paperwork, and then start working in Hammelburg.
So I could call the guy at the university and tell him I don't need that job anymore.
And I now have a job. Now I have to get an income-tax card, and health insurance (up until now, I'm covered within my Dad's health insurance, but that's no longer possible when I have a job), and an apartment and so on.
Though most likely I'll be able to sleep on the base in the beginning, so I can search for a flat when I'm down there. Much better than trying from here.

Yesterday evening, we had guests. Very interesting. Some explanation necessary, though.
In the house we used to live in in Halle, there was one apartment used by the church, for pastors and their families. One pastor that lived in that place was the one who babtized me and my older siblings, and his wife was godmother to my sister.
Soo, sometime in the 80s, they left the GDR. They had trouble in their marriage for ages, and were always close to getting divorced. In 1993 or 94, they visited for my sister's confirmation. Shortly after that, they got divorced. Between them leaving Halle and the confirmation, and all the time since then, we didn't have any contact with them.
Then a few days ago my Mom got a call from the woman. She had since remarried and was on a sightseeing tour in this area with her second husband and her grand-daughter (she had three children from her first marriage).
So they came to visit yesterday, and it was the weirdest experience ever. The woman, H., was the only one who knew us. She hadn't seen us for ten years. All the memories she talked about were stories from her first marriage. Which is logical, as it was her first marriage that got us in contact in the first place. At dinner, she told us the long and sad story of her marriage and divorce, and her new love, all the while her second husband sat around rather awkwarldy and didn't really know what to say. And her granddaughter had the look on her face only a fifteen-year-old can have when listening to her grandmother's sex life. (Yes, H. went that much into detail.)
It was so strange.

Yesterday evening my right eye started hurting and itching, and this morning it was swollen. I have a sty. Went to the doctor and got some ointment to put on both eyes. Hopefully it's gone in a few days. It's not so much that it looks as if I got into a fight, but more that the swollen lid presses against the eye, and that hurts. Good thing I found it out so quickly, though. The last time, I went to the doctor much later (and on vacation), and the ointment didn't work, and as soon as I got home I had to have it cut out.

Funny endnote: I just got an email inviting me to another interview. Tehee. Too late folks!

books update

I finished Order of the Phoenix. Gosh, I had forgotten so much of the story! I think I've only read it two or three times before. So I plan to re-read that, and probably also the Goblet of Fire, pretty soon.
But when I bought the Harry Potters, my Mom bought a whole stack of books I need to read, too. I interrupted reading OotP to read the latest (paperback) Mitchell&Markby by Ann Granger, I'm right now reading the latest (paperback) Fortune de France by Robert Merle and I have I think three Fidelmas by Peter Tremayne waiting for me. And that doesn't include the two non-fiction books I'm reading right now, the one on American history and the Bowie biography.
Fortune de France is a series of French historical novels (that is, they are about French history and they are originally written in French, I'm not actually reading them in French). The problem is that there are 13 novels in all, and they have been translated in a rather strange order: volumes 1 to 3, then 7 to 9, then 4 and 10, then 12, now 5, 6 is only published as hardcover so far, and whether the 13th volume will actually be the last or in between the two sets of six I don't know. Actually, I was under the impression that it were only 12 novels, not thirteen.
Anyway, so while the last time I read something from the series, I was reading about Cardinal Richelieu and his contemporaries, I am now quite some time earlier in history, in the fights between King Henry the somethingst and the Duke of Navarra. Getting complicated to keep track of what's going on.

And I have discovered a serious problem: Spoilers. Hopefully, the next HP will be published soon. But of course, it will take some time after the publishing of the English version for the German to be available. And even longer for the English paperback. Which means that I have to get the English hardcover as soon as it is published, because otherwise I won't know what's happening at the same time as all my friends on LJ will know, which might cause problems when reading their LJs.
OK, so it might be a weird problem.

Oh, speaking of spoilers, I found a plot mistake in OotP I missed all the other times I read it.
Harry's wand is broken when he and Hermione lead Umbridge in the Forbidden Forest. But later at the ministry, he has his wand again. I've read the two or three chapters twice to make sure I didn't miss anything, but there is no explanation. This makes me happy somehow, because it means that even people like JKR can make mistakes.

help for undecided voters

For those who don't read theferrett:
The evil that is George Bush
The evil that is John Kerry

Candidates in alphabetical order, not to influence anybody.

EDIT: I've tried to actually get my computer to show the pictures on the Bush site, but it never works. Which to me looks like either the people making the site screwed up the html, or the source site (Bush's official website) has taken down or renamed all pictures used for this joke.

language guessing

angharad posted a link to an mp3 in an unknown language (unknown to her, and unknown to me). Sounds really interesting, so if you have time go and check it out, maybe you'll know what it is.